


Kasumi

by caporushes



Category: Tokyo Demons Series - Lianne Sentar
Genre: Future AU, Gen, Single Dad AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 05:22:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6787099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caporushes/pseuds/caporushes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo looked down at his tiny, fragile daughter and never knew he could love someone so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kasumi

**Author's Note:**

> Just some bits and pieces as I feel them out!

The day had been all oppressive August heat and humidity, clinging to every surface as stormclouds gathered overhead. When Kasumi Oda took her first cry it was the sharp crack of thunder and tumultuous rain. 

Jo looked down at his tiny, fragile daughter and never knew he could love someone so much.

His little lion girl, so small and perfectly formed down to her every eyelash and fingernail and he couldn’t sleep and neither could her mother, she cried so much, so loud. A ball of red-faced fury only soothed when she was in one of their arms. He could tell her mother was coming unglued at the edges so he would wake up and pad over to where Kasumi lay, screaming at a world she could barely see, and he would pick her up and drape her over his shoulder until she lay still, warm and soft. Sometimes he would gaze at her and think that he’d done at least one good thing in his entire life.

***

And then she leaves.

“I can’t keep playing house with you like this,” she says, clenching her teeth and scrubbing at her eyes. Her mascara smears across her face, and there’s a tear track in her foundation (though she isn’t crying now). She looks so young-- and she is, they both are, barely 21 and this is too much for all of them. “All she ever does is cry, and need me, and I-- I want a life, Jo!”

Jo stares numbly at her, his cigarette burning down to ashes in his fingers.

“But this… is our life.”

The look she gives him is at once tender and scornful.

“Not for me, Jo.”

And so she goes.

***

He runs to pick Kasumi up from the daycare center-- he’s so late, swearing on the way over, why wouldn’t his boss just let him go? She’s the last child still there, a lonely little rabbit sitting slumped in the arms of a frustrated attendant. Kasumi turns at the sound of his approach and her face breaks into a smile so wide, so beaming it could light up the whole fucking world and be seen from space. She burbles and reaches towards him.

“Oda-san,” the attendant begins, hesitating. He takes Kasumi out of her arms, already dreading what’s about to come next. He can see in the firm set of her shoulders and the way she won’t hand him Kasumi’s bag he isn’t going to like what comes next.

“Oda-san, we appreciate your… unique situation, but…” Jo wants to scream, but he doesn’t, because Kasumi is busy pulling on his mouth. “It isn’t good, for children to be alone so much.” Like he didn’t know. Like this was what he wanted for her, for himself, for any of them. He pries Kasumi’s bag out of her hands without waiting for her to give it to him, and she frowns, sharp and judgmental.

“We can’t keep looking after your daughter so late when the other children can all go home on time, Mr. Oda,” she snaps and there it is. Jo’s stomach sinks. For a moment he’s angry-- he pays the same fees as everyone else, doesn’t he? It’s not like he does it on purpose, it’s just the way things are. 

He deflates, anger gone quick as it came and replaced with cold hollowness instead. 

“I understand,” and he does, and that is the end of it. He turns and starts the walk home, Kasumi cradled against his chest. He looks down at her, his girl. She’d liked the place. Now they would have to find a new one, but where else could he go, so close to work and home and something he could afford?

Kasumi makes some sound, distracting him. He smiles at her as best he can. She pulls on his collar, then his ear.

“What’s up, little bug?” She burbles, waving tiny fat fists in the air for emphasis. “Mm, I see.” For a moment, everything is fine.


End file.
